The End of Life
by J A McCollough
Summary: The Tenth Doctor finally lets go, and dies peacefully, after 150 years in the TARDIS. I don't own these characters.


The Doctor sat in his TARDIS, tired, worn from his years of travelling. Once he had had his golden companions, his friends and partners, accompanying him through time and space, but now he was too old. He has not had an adventure in nearly one hundred and fifty years. After the Rift had swallowed The Master, he had given up.

He had destroyed his greatest foe once and for all, but at a cost. Rose, Donna, and Martha, the three most important women in his tenth life, were dead. They had been swallowed into the heart of the rift and turned to dust along with everyone else in the Master's Zone. It had been the last revenge of a great adversary.

The doctor sat, his blue suit crumpled and worn from the years lulling on board the TARDIS, His face was wrinkled, and drooped, as if his skin was struggling to hold onto the bone beneath it. His scalp now bare, save for a few worthless patches of white hair protruding from the gaps behind his ears.

The Doctor Sighed, he sighed often, and he was particularly tired today, time had taken it's toll on this body, and he knew soon it would be time to begin again. Maybe his next form would travel again.

"No" He told himself, "I can't let that happen, too much pain"

He stood up, letting out a groan of pain as his bones creaked under his own weight, fumbling for something to lean on he fell against the console.

**VWOORP!**

"Oh dear" He said quietly, as the room around him shrunk and turned a darker shade of brown. "There goes the desktop theme. Goodbye Coral, nice having you around!"

He coughed again, leaning on the console for support once more, the engines of the TARDIS leapt into action, hoping at last to be allowed to move.

"No Old Girl" The doctor said calmly, his voice raspy, his breathing heavy and tired. "We can't, you know that, we just can't."

He fumbled in his pocket for the small tin in which the remains of captain Jack Harkness were stored.

"I think it's time you were let go" He said calmly, Coughing more violently.

He opened a panel on the console and scattered the ashes into the hole beneath. The engines sounded faintly.

"Back home Jack. Without the TARDIS stopping you you'll be able to reform. Your team needs you, don't leave them again."

He coughed louder than before and fell backwards, collapsing on the floor.

"Well," He said, letting his muscles relax, "I guess these old hearts can't stay beating forever."

The doctor cast his mind back to all the pain, death, and suffering he had caused. Jenny, his daughter, who had died saving him, Martha, who had almost lost her family. Rose, oh rose, who he had abandoned with his double, and then left to die at the hands of The Master.

A tear trickled down his old face.

"Goodbye Old Girl," He said, sobbing as his hand stroked the floor of the TARDIS.

The Doctor closed his eyes, for the final time.

His mind was cast to all he had lost, all he had fought. The battle won, the battle lost. Of Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Gwen Cooper. All who had been willing to risk their lives for him. What had he given them in return? Nothing. Nothing but pain, sorrow, and an awful lot of running.

His mind went black, he stopped still.

Dead.

His body began glowing with a warm light, a ray of hope, a life in a world filled with death. He rose up as if pulled by invisible strings, o his feet, hovering a foot above the ground. His body was glowing, as if on fire. His eyes opened, He smiled, and He could see the end. His tenth life flashed before his eyes, and he realised for the first time in One hundred and Fifty years how much he had done.

The wrinkles began to fade from his old face and his hair grew back where it had been missing, until the young man that had once lay laughing on the hills of New New York with rose tyler stood bathed in energy.

His features began to contort under the light, his bone structure chnig, every cell, molecule, every strand of DNA rewriting itself.

The Light faded, and a new man collapsed to the ground.

His eyes flashed open. He stood up.

His eyes rolled around the TARDIS, gathering his surroundings carefully...

His gave a careful, thoughtful look, and then said, with a smile...

"Cup of tea I think."

He set the controls, the engines Vworped into life for the first time in a century and a half. He pulled a mirror from above him and glanced into it.

"Could be worse I suppose," He said, stroking his chin "Though the hair is gonna need a bit of work, still, at least I'm not old Gramps anymore"

He grinned, and set off on his new adventure.


End file.
